Meletius Golokolosov

Holy Venerable Martyr Meletius Golokolosov, hieromonk, was born in 1870, from the Don Cossacks. In 1898 he entered the Glinsk Hermitage as a novice and was tonsured a monk on 27 August 1902. On 25 August 1905, at his own request, he was transferred to the Issyk-⁠Kul Monastery in the diocese of Turkestan. On 30 April 1906 he was ordained hierodeacon and on 30 November the same year hieromonk. On 22 December 1907 he was given the epigonation. On 2 May 1908 he was sent as parish priest to the town of Przhevalsk.

After that he was often sent on missions, performing priestly service in small villages and garrisons where, because of poverty and other hardships, a married priest could not be appointed. On 1 April 1913, by decision of the Holy Synod, he received the pectoral cross. When the Issyk-⁠Kul Monastery was ruined in the Kyrgyz revolt of 1916, he served in the Kopal district of the Semirechye region, where he perished in 1918, in the time of the fratricidal turmoil.

In August 2000, at the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, Hieromonk Meletius was glorified among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia for veneration throughout the Church. He is commemorated on 16 September, in the new style, and on 8 September with the Synaxis of the Saints of the Central Asian Metropolitan District.